


Belong

by immediateinfatuation



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Hot Springs & Onsen, Implied Sexual Content, Japan, Memes, Weddings, jeankasa - Freeform, jeankasa au weekend 2018, more kissing than a teen drama, no seriously, springles - Freeform, springlestein, there's lots of memes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 10:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15117299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immediateinfatuation/pseuds/immediateinfatuation
Summary: In which Jean's date to Sasha and Connie's wedding is simultaneously the hottest woman to ever grace God's green earth and so much more than just a pretty face. Written for Jeankasa AU Weekend 2018.





	Belong

**Author's Note:**

> it is jeankasa au weekend, my dudes. *screams* anyway, remember how in chapter 106 jean fantasized about unisex hot springs? bc uh, that's all I've been thinking about, like, ever since the chapter was released. (also, if you think he was thinking about anyone other than mikasa while he said that, meet me in the dunkin donut's parking lot by my house. i just wanna chat). this was the result of that. it's unnecessarily huge, but you know what else is unnecessarily huge ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) my love for jeankasa, of course! enjoy!

Unlike Connie, Jean Kirstein did not journey to Japan to immerse himself in a culture contrastive to his own. Unlike Sasha, he was not there to sample (or, more specifically, scarf down) the country’s delectable, though oftentimes unconventional, cuisine; dishes they infrequently found elsewhere, dishes that weren’t nearly as scrumptious in America, the country they otherwise inhabited.

No, Jean was in Japan for but two reasons, the likes of which involved attending his best friends’ wedding and ogling women of an abundance of ages (although preferably his own) as they luxuriated in one of the country’s hot springs, each of which required its occupants to bathe buck naked, an ordinance that would be frowned upon in any other part of the world (excluding Europe, perhaps); but, for reasons unbeknownst to Jean, primarily because he simply didn’t care to become competent in its history prior to arriving, was apparently as commonplace in Japan as guns and heart disease were in America.

Initially, when his lifelong best friends, Sasha Blouse and Connie Springer (who would very soon become Mr. and Mrs. Springer, as they were mere days away from marriage) invited him along to Japan, Jean had declined by suggesting he would feel like a third wheel for the duration of the excursion, despite the fact that throughout the entire decade Sasha and Connie had dated, he had never once felt as if he was unwanted or was impinging their intimacy in any way. Unsurprisingly, and fortuitously, Sasha had called attention to the absurdity of this suggestion.

“Do you even hear yourself right now, Jean? How many times have the three of us hung out since Connie and I started dating, and how many times have you felt uncomfortable? I want an honest answer here.”

To which Jean answered defeatedly, “A million, and zero.”

What he had yet to mention, and presumably never would, was that the truth of the matter was, his original intention was to book a flight to Japan the antecedent day of their wedding, emerge from his hotel room solely to snatch his room service from the inconceivably clean hands of whoever was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on their perspective) enough to transfer it to his room, and to attend his best friends’ wedding, after which he would return to Chicago, which is where he would remain while the newlyweds lingered in what may as well be another planet, what with its unfamiliar customs and all. It would be Jean’s first time setting foot in a foreign land, so naturally, he was trepidatious about it.

It wasn’t until Connie conveniently alluded to the hot springs that Jean’s apprehension evanesced as if it never existed at all, and suddenly, he was just as elated at the prospect of spending a week there as Sasha and Connie were, or perhaps even more so, as every coherent thought of the soon-to-be husband and wife consisted of ways in which their wedding could be a catastrophe. Three days had elapsed before the couple finally confided to him in between bites of udon, which is precisely why and when Jean proposed they visit the nearest hot spring immediately after dinner, insisting that in doing so, their misgivings would vanish, much like his did earlier.

Jean had been anticipating the perfect opportunity to visit a hot spring, so, when Sasha and Connie unconsciously evinced they required some R & R, of course he took advantage of their predicament. Had he advised they visit a hot spring any sooner, they surely would’ve been suspicious, for neither Connie nor Sasha were cognizant that Jean’s inducement to lingering in Japan longer than he originally envisaged involved his eyes on the bare breasts and nether regions of Japanese women who were hopefully far too reposeful to suspect anything.

Upon arrival at the hot spring, Sasha made a beeline for the buffet table, which was juxtaposed with the bathroom for a reason, or a multiplicity of them, Jean didn’t consider.

“We literally just ate dinner, Sash,” He asserted as the woman in question piled her plate high with equally high quantities of sushi that would’ve inflicted mercury poisoning on anyone whose stomach was not cast iron. In other words, anyone who wasn’t Sasha Blouse. “Don’t you wanna take a dip before there’s even more food in you to digest?”

“You’ve known me long enough to know that my stomach is perpetually empty.” She plainly riposted, an auburn eyebrow arched inquisitively. “What’s this really about, Jean?”

“I think I have an idea,” Mused Connie as he snatched a sushi roll from his fiancée, who swatted his upturned palm just as swiftly, “He wants to get all nakey to prove that American dicks are bigger than Japanese ones.”

“Yes!” Jean exclaimed, perhaps too obstreperously, for those manning the buffet table regarded him repulsively, then whispered what Jean surmised were racist remarks into one another’s ears. Not that Jean would be affronted in any way if they were; the Japanese had every right to be intolerant of Americans, after all, especially since the latter was accountable for the limitless lives that were lost when they dropped atomic bombs upon not one, but two of the former’s cities. Jean added, in a softer voice this time: “Read my damn mind,” all the while cognitively acknowledging God, Connie’s genes, or whomever or whatever else was culpable of his unadulterated doltishness.

“You two are peas in a pod, I swear,” Remarked Sasha, although, in truth, it sounded nothing like that, as there was a masticated mash of rice, raw fish, seaweed, and julienned vegetables atop her tongue. Luckily, though, if Jean and Connie had acquired anything from spending the better part of the past decade with a girl who was almost always eating something, it was the decipherment of the language one utters whilst eating. “I’m surprised you aren’t scheduled to marry each other tomorrow.”

At this intimation, Connie wreathed his arms about his fiancée’s inconceivably narrow waist; her unexpectedness of this action was evidenced when her plate clattered to the floor, the remaining sushi rolls spun either in circles or forwards, ceasing only when inadvertently stepped upon. “You know I only have eyes for you,” Connie cooed before he flabbergasted her further still with a kiss, during which Jean snuck into the men’s’ changing room, contemplating whether Connie didn’t possess not just a brain but a sense of smell as well, as he was indubitably getting whiffs of Sasha’s fish-breath while their mouths were momentarily intermeshed. But eventually Jean concluded that when you truly love someone, aspects that would otherwise repel someone, such as the scent of one’s breath, are inconsequential.

Jean emerged from the changing room as naked as the day he was born, or maybe even more so, as at least back then he was blissfully oblivious to the eyes gazing upon his manhood as if the eyes’ owners had never seen anything like it before, though in actuality they glimpsed hundreds of them daily; and although each pair of eyes was aimed towards that particular organ solely to confirm his sex, his stomach had turned nonetheless when it occurred to him years later that it was neither his mother nor his third girlfriend who had first seen him naked: it was an assemblage of strangers clad in scrubs, the bloodstains on which signified his successful entrance into the world.

Since then, many had beheld Jean’s naked body. His mother, whenever she would bathe him in tepid water that turned hot the instant he exuded a certain amber liquid in consequence of her tickling him so superfluously. His girlfriends, for reasons too redundant to elucidate. Even Sasha and Connie at one point, but only because the latter had promised him opulence Jean was too immensely intoxicated to recall he even owned. Everyone who had espied Jean Kirstein in the altogether posterior to his birth had been familiar; therefore, he hadn’t felt nearly as, well, naked, as he did now, what with foreign men inspecting his penis as they walked past, their eyes widening at the sheer paleness of it. Or at its sheer largeness.

 _Maybe American dicks really are bigger than Japanese ones,_ Thought Jean, and as Brobdingnagian as his desire to test his hypothesis and see for himself was, he urged his eyes forwards, upwards, sideways; anywhere but downwards, really. Besides, the prospect of a pretty Japanese woman affirming his proposition was considerably more appealing, which had been his purpose anyway. Well, apart from actually glimpsing one first, an aspiration that currently appeared unachievable on account of the altitudinous wall that segregated the males from the females not having so much as an aperture to peer through.

He had been as discreet as one scrutinizing a wall as scrupulously as a scientist scrutinizes a specimen, but apparently, he hadn’t been discreet enough, for a teenager with hair as blue as the water Jean had no desire to dip his toes into grabbed his wrist unexpectedly, and no sooner had he done that than he pulled him away from the unclimbable wall void of any crevices, away from the men, pimpled and wrinkled alike, contemplating them curiously, and towards the boiler room, which is when and where he promptly released Jean’s hand and pointed his own at an unsettlingly head-shaped hole in the wall.

It was then that the thirteen hours and seven minutes Jean had invested into memorizing commonly spoken Japanese expressions wasn’t all for naught _. “Arigatou.”_

“Shouldn’t this be the other way around?” The stranger inquired in impeccable English. “You know, you, the responsible adult, showing me, the horny teen, the peephole through which to stare at naked chicks? Sir?”

Jean, who was seldom dumbfounded, finally was, for once; he hadn’t foreseen him to be fluent in English, much less converse with him. “Firstly, if you haven’t already inferred from the whiteness of my skin, I am not from around these parts, therefore I do not know where anything is. Secondly, who said there’s an age restriction for peeping Toms?”

“I may have been born colorblind, sir, but thankfully not completely. And no one said that, sir.”

Standing on the tips of his toes, Jean slipped his head through the proverbial hole in the wall and, lo and behold, he had a perfect, if not scenic, view of undressed Japanese women. “Enough with the sirs already, sheesh.” He intently observed as a droplet of water trickled down the collarbone of a rotund, but not inordinately so, young woman, to her breasts, until halting at her nipples, which were erect from the cold. Then: “I know the Japanese are polite, but you, my blue-haired friend, are concerningly so.”

Little did he know, however, that while he had been witnessing the droplet’s pilgrimage, his blue-haired buddy had vanished without so much as a _Sayonara._ Not that Jean would’ve noticed if he had, anyway; right now, he was far too intrigued by the way the women’s porcelain skin scintillated in the moonlight, so much so that he wouldn’t have even batted an eyelash had he shouted _Sayonara._

Jean scarcely ever used his computer, preferring to watch porn and drawing tutorials on his phone instead, but he used it enough to know that practically every unsecured webpage was teeming with clickbait that promised its single and male visitors supposedly experienced, and evidently attractive, Asian women, if they clicked on its typically bold font, or the image of a woman the clickbait’s creators most likely unearthed from Google Images. If there was anything Jean Kirstein wasn’t, it was gullible; that being so, he had never once succumbed to the temptation to click upon any of the sort, although he now understood why innumerable individuals did: Asian women were fucking _hot._

What he also failed to notice was that as he was getting an eyeful of unsuspecting Japanese women, someone had been gaping at him as well, though not quite as lecherously. There was no lust in this woman’s eyes, no, there was only abhorrence. It hadn’t dawned on Jean that she had been crouching mere inches beneath his head the whole time, awaiting the moment she would leap to her feet like a jack in the box from its quadrilateral prison, until she did just that. “Enjoying the view?”

The last thing that crossed Jean’s mind before his head jerked upwards in surprise and collided into the wall’s brick exterior was that although this woman was fully clothed (as far as he could tell, at least), she was pronouncedly more prepossessing than any unclothed Japanese woman he had seen thus far.

* * *

Being tethered to a chair with nothing but a pair of boxers obscuring his loins and a voluptuous woman sitting before him was one perverted fantasy out of Jean’s profusion of them, each of which was even more unlikely to occur than the last. Ironically, this was how he came to, although he realized straightaway that the real-life reverie he now found himself in wouldn’t unfold the way they did in his dreams, and something about the way her legs were crossed defensively as opposed to unfurled lustfully convinced him so.

“Very much,” Jean suddenly spoke. His voice reverberated around the room, the interior design of which he unsettlingly ascertained echoed an interrogation room, and when it did, the woman didn’t so much as blink, nor breathe, thereby assuring that she wasn’t as skittish as, say, the idiot who had recently rendered himself unconscious.

To be fair, the woman was, to some extent, blameworthy for his blackout, along with the sudden stiffness in his crotch, which was accompanied by a not so sudden desire to determine whether she was just as shapely underneath her uniform, which was as equally obsidian as her close-cropped hair and barely discernible in the dim room.

“What was that?” She asked. Her voice, soft but stentorian in its own way, was precisely how Jean predicted it to be.

“Before my head became one with the wall, you asked if I enjoyed the view. And I did. Although a bit too much, apparently. What are you, anyway? A lifeguard? Thought they didn’t have those at hot springs. You know, on account of the water being, like, three feet deep and all.”

“Don’t think of me as a lifeguard,” She said in a monotone, “Think of me as a woman who is paid solely to prevent peeping Toms from, well, peeping. In other words, your worst nightmare.”

Disremembering he was restrained, Jean lurched forward in his chair, only for it to lurch forward as well and topple to the frigid floor, which was where he was, his face pressed against the concrete, when he exclaimed, “Wait, that’s a thing now?”

In one swift motion, and without so much as extracting herself from her own chair, the woman repositioned the chair—and Jean—via shoving it—them—forward as if it—and Jean—weighed no more than the ropes bound to them both, where it—they—originally were Specifically, ten feet across from her. “What, peeping Toms, or women paid to stop them?”

“The latter, obviously.”

“It has ‘been a thing’ for the better part of a year, if I’m mistaken.” The woman remarked as she glared at him, her intriguing charcoal eyes boring into his ordinary amber ones. She then pointed an inculpating finger at him. “You, mister, should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Why? For being human and realizing that Japanese women, especially when in their birthday suits, are hot as fuck? Besides, I wasn’t the one who found your ‘secret peephole,’ this dude with blue hair did! Berate him instead, he’s impossible to miss!”

The woman was visibly bored; her palm rested upon her cheek. “Remind me again: who was the one doing the peeping?”

“Me, but—”

“Which is why I’m berating you, not him,” She interposed, “Which begs the question: what’s it gonna take for you to quit your peeping once and for all, _Tom?”_

“It’s Jean Kirstein, I’ll have you know.” He grinned coquettishly, and the woman, as if sensing what he was insinuating, squirmed in her seat. “And I’ll only stop peeping on one condition, although I’m afraid you won’t be too fond of it.”

“It’s Mikasa Ackerman.” Said the woman who was no longer nameless, “And there aren’t many things I’m fond of these days, so odds are this’ll be one of them.”

“Hello, Mikasa. If only we had met under different, less inappropriate circumstances. And I’ll never peep again _if_ you agree to be my gorgeous date to my best friends’ wedding tomorrow.”

“Hello, _Jean._ And do you promise you’ll stop peeping if I—” She struggled to repeat his proposal, “Romantically escort you to your best friends’ wedding tomorrow.”

“Oh, c’mon, can’t you say ‘date?’ Surely you’ve been on one before. I mean, of course you have, who wouldn’t wanna ask you out, hell, I just did, so—”

If Mikasa rising from her chair wasn’t enough to cease Jean’s rambling, the screech it elicited when she dragged it across the floor certainly was; it rang in his ears long after she had done so. “Are we done here?”

She didn’t loosen the ropes that constricted him like serpents until he answered, and in Japanese, no less, _“Hai.”_ Then: “By the way, did you, by any chance, uh, see my…” He glanced downward, and when his gaze was at eye-level once more, Mikasa’s eyes, which had also been fixated on the unquestionable lump in the center of his boxers, flitted back upwards.

“Unlike you, I am not a pervert, so no, I did not.” And with that she hurriedly pivoted on her heel and marched towards the door, but not hurriedly enough, however, because either the room’s near-darkness was playing tricks on him, or Jean noticed that there were undertones of pink upon her cheeks.

* * *

When Jean reunited with Connie moments later, the latter was confounded to discover that not a single one of his friend’s caramel locks was damp, as was Jean when he was informed that there was, peculiarly, a food that wasn’t fond of Sasha, and that she had been, lamentably, in the bathroom for the better part of an hour. Whether she was in the process of purging it from her body orally or anally, Jean didn’t dare ask.

“But anyway,” Connie said; the immediacy with which he diverted from the topic indicated his cognizance of precisely how this particular food was being expelled from his fiancée’s digestive system, “You don’t look the slightest bit wet. Did you even go in the hot springs at all?”

Under any other circumstances, most particularly ones that didn’t consist of his other best friend bound to a bathroom for an interminably due to an upset stomach, something as familiar to most as the backs of their hands but was as foreign as Sasha as the food that had inflicted this on her in the first place, Jean would’ve riposted, “Did _you?”_ or something else in that fashion. But with Mikasa approaching him at breakneck speed, and with Connie’s silver eyes darting back and forth between the two at a pace that was just as unprecedented, all he could manage was, “Yeah, about that.”

By the time Mikasa was a hair’s breadth away from Jean, she was panting profusely, and Jean should not have conceptualized the possibility of himself being the source of her exhaustion one day (hopefully tomorrow), especially not while in proximity of Connie and a slew of strangers, but he did regardless.

“About tomorrow,” She gasped; her hands flew to her knees, as did Jean’s eyes to her breasts, which her hunched position appreciatively exposed, “I don’t know when you intend to pick me up, although I assume it’s long before this lovely workplace o’ mine closes. Anyway, you know where to find me.”

“Uh huh,” Murmured Jean absentmindedly; he was far too preoccupied with contemplating whether the dress she’d be wearing tomorrow would accentuate her curves as nicely as her uniform did. That is, if she did, in fact, climb into his car sporting an elegant gown, and not her faded, although admittedly form-fitting, work uniform.

Mikasa’s eyes met Jean’s, only to find that his had been fixed on her breasts the whole time. Then, sighing in disrelish, she stood upright. “So, in the meantime, I’ll be dreading our…” She gagged, whether for emphasis or because she really couldn’t say the word without doing so, Jean was uncertain, _“Date.”_

She left as soundlessly and instantly as she had arrived, and Jean would’ve watched her hips sway to and fro tantalizingly had Connie not forcibly craned his friend’s neck so that he was staring at him instead of at Mikasa’s retreating figure.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?” To prove, or rather, disprove, his postulation, Connie pinched himself repeatedly.

Jean shook his head. “Nope.”

“Then…is this a skit you two churned out solely to fuck with me? ‘Cause if so, I’m flattered.”

Again, Jean shook his head, and again, he answered, “Nope.”

Connie’s pupils dilated with stupefaction. “You mean to tell me that a looker like that is seriously your date?!”

The ebullience Jean had been bridling burst free in the form of an outspread grin he reserved solely for occasions such as these. “Yes! Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because you’re so…Jean,” Remarked Connie. Strangely enough, this didn’t vanquish, or at the very least, diminish, Jean’s exuberance. “How did this come about, anyway?”

“How about you keep mum about the method Sasha’s using to rid her body of the only food that failed to agree with her, and in return, I keep mum about the circumstances under which me and my date met?”

As if on cue, a clamorous groan that could’ve only come from the aforementioned woman’s mouth resounded from the bathroom, and Jean and Connie cringed concurrently.

The stridency of Connie’s gulp coincided with his fiancée’s anguished moan. “Sure thing.”

* * *

The wedding was nothing short of magnificent.

Apparently, whatever had ailed Sasha so immensely the previous evening had been expunged from her body, for the bride to be manifested nothing that even remotely resembled ailment. As such, she was twice as rambunctious as usual, and her more intense than average effervescence intensified tenfold the instant her father led her down the aisle, towards Connie, who lingered at the end of it, visibly enraptured.

And visibly overwrought as well, what with the way his hands trembled as he slid the more elegant ring (both of which were brought over to them by his brother, Martin, respectively) onto Sasha’s unimaginably slim finger. Fortunately, though, his disquietude dissipated once the two were declared man and wife and kissed as applause erupted amongst them. A lone tear escaped from Jean’s eye, and while ordinarily he would’ve rushed to efface its existence, he let it fall, let it seep through the polyester of his tight-fitting tuxedo, which, come to think of it, hadn’t fit him as snugly the week before, when all his meals didn’t consist primarily of noodles and fatty meats.

In fact, the snugness of his tuxedo, which was especially figure-hugging in his crotch, is what had instigated his abstinence of ascertaining how Mikasa’s dress fit her, although the countless cat calls she had received throughout the evening had confirmed that she was as stunning as Jean imagined she’d be, if not even more so, as not only would the cat callers cat call, they would whisper amongst themselves as well, and without a shadow of a doubt, Jean knew that their whispers weren’t ones of lust, but rather, envy. Partly because he had heard them, loud and clear.

“That guy’s gotta be the luckiest man on the planet.”

“I bet you eleven Yen his dick fell off from fucking her too often.”

“Why do the white ones always get the hottest chicks?”

Or rather, Mikasa had heard them loud and clear when they whispered these remarks, among others, in her native tongue, then translated them for Jean, but only because he wouldn’t cease pestering her to do so. Apparently, envy was a universal emotion, as Connie and Sasha’s cousins would also whisper amongst themselves whenever Mikasa walked past with her arm interlinked with Jean’s. Suffice it to say, their remarks required no translation.

Mikasa and Sasha became fast friends. Presently, the latter was sending winks and thumbs-up to the former as she danced with Jean, if one could even call it that, as every so often Mikasa’s heel would impale the leather of his loafers, which ensued in Jean stepping upon her toes, and so on and so forth until the song ended, a new one began, and the cycle recurred once more.

Halfway through Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (requested by Connie, unsurprisingly), Mikasa’s gaze aligned with that of the groom’s sister, Sunny. Unlike Mikasa’s, which had been accidental, Sunny’s gaze was entirely intentional, as evidenced by her narrowed eyes and upturned mouth. If looks could kill, Mikasa would be buried five feet beneath the floorboards by now.

“Don’t laugh,” Warned Mikasa; she raised her voice to be heard over Rick Astley’s piercing falsetto, “But I think the groom’s sister is plotting my death as we shittingly dance.”

Discreetly, Jean glanced at Sunny, and sure enough, his reluctant date’s suspicions were correct.

The song reached its chorus; the newlyweds drunkenly bellowed the lyrics, albeit in disarray, as the lyrics they were shouting contradicted the order Rick Astley had wrote them in, thirty-one years ago.

“That’s probably because she’s jealous.” Jean observed. Then, when Mikasa squinched her eyes in incertitude, he added, “We used to go out, after all.”

At this revelation, Mikasa shut her eyes against the dizzying array of colors the disco ball spinning above them distributed, tossed her head back, and actually _laughed_. Her reaction bewildered Jean; he wasn’t certain she was capable of such a thing. As taken aback as he was, he managed, somehow, “What?”

She chortled, and shortly after she did so, it occurred to Jean that he needn’t fathom out how comfortably her dress fit her figure, for he was indubitably aroused by something that wasn’t even remotely fornicatory. “I’ve taken you for many things, Jean Kirstein, but a cliché? And here I thought you were better than that.”

Gradually, Rick Astley’s timbre grew faint, and fainter still, until it evanesced entirely and was supplanted by an eerie piano melody, the likes of which was familiar to essentially everyone with Internet access. Suddenly emboldened, Jean twirled Mikasa. “How exactly am I a cliché?”

Once fully rotated, Mikasa allowed Jean to tug her towards him once more, allowed her cheek to rest against his tuxedo-clad chest, allowed herself to listen to his heartbeat, the rapidity of which escalated the longer it lingered there. “Well, for starters, you dated your best friend’s sister.”

 _“HOOOOW CAN YOU SEEEEE INTO MY EYES LIKE OPEN DOOOOORS!”_ Cried Sasha and Connie synchronously.

Since they sang the subsequent lyrics just as vociferously, Jean had no choice but to shout. “I CAN SEE HOW THAT WOULD MAKE ME CLICHED, ALTHOUGH YOU IMPLIED I AM IN OTHER WAYS, TOO. HOW ELSE AM I CLICHED?”

Mikasa’s mouth opened and closed over and over again, which evinced the nonexistence of Jean’s other banalities, but he rebuked her regardless. “That’s the only one, isn’t it?”

 Dejectedly, Mikasa murmured, “I suppose so.”

 _“MY SPIRIT SLEEEPING SOMEWHERE COOOLD!”_ Sang Sasha and Connie.

“I DIDN’T QUITE CATCH THAT.” Yelled Jean.

“I SUPPOSE SO!” Mikasa yelled back.

Jean risked a glance at Sunny to verify she was still glowering at them. Then: “Kiss me.”

_“WAKE ME UP INSIIIIIDE!”_

Staggered in every sense of the word, Mikasa withdrew her face from his chest, although in hindsight, she should’ve kept it buried there a moment more, as doing so would’ve obscured her flushed cheeks. “W-what? Why?”

“For my ex to get the idea and fuck off, of course!” Exclaimed Jean. “Now pucker up, buttercup.”

But Mikasa wouldn’t succumb that easily. “Won’t me kissing you only fuel her hatred towards me?”

Jean simpered complacently. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”

“I’m not kissing you for your self-satisfaction.”

“Isn’t that why people kiss, though? Or have I been doing it wrong this whole time?”

She promptly pressed her lips to his, because while it wasn’t her idea of delectation, it was certainly superior to bickering back and forth with him like they were a pair of duplicitous politicians. And that’s how their first kiss was: compulsory, and with Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” blaring in the background.

Too soon, she parted; their lips weren’t even an entire inch apart before Jean reunited them once again, crashing them together with a fervor that simultaneously frightened and astonished him. “Kiss me until she leaves.” He whispered, his breath warm against her lips.

Her fingers twisted in his hair. Her nails, which were longer than usual courtesy of the French manicure she had given herself that morning, scraped across his undercut; she elicited a whimper from him. “What’s the magic word?”

His stubble tickled her chin as she inclined her head and deepened the kiss; her recently polished nails briefly grazed the nape of his neck before her hand descended to the waistband of his slacks, where it slipped into what little space there was between Jean’s hipbones and his belt. It was then that she finally allowed herself a peek at all of him, from the gold chains fastened to the throat lines of his shoes to his forest green tie, and when she finished beholding him, the conclusion she came to was this: he was sexy as _fuck._

Unbeknownst to her, Jean had done likewise; for a prolonged moment, his eyes had lingered on her sinewy legs, legs he wouldn’t mind having his head between. It was the way the neon orange, green, pink, and red irradiated her dress that urged his eyes upwards, and afterwards, he was indebted to himself for desisting from admiring her any earlier, for it was the perfect fit, the dress, a dress he wouldn’t mind tearing off, but not too roughly so as not to rip it and ruin it forever. “Please?”

Indiscreetly, Mikasa’s eyes roamed his partially parted lips. There was a smudge of her lipstick in the center; she envisioned leaving that same magenta smear on every unkissed inch of his skin later, so that way it could be prominent everywhere, not just his lips.

Lips she wouldn’t mind kissing again.

And so, she kissed them again.

“Bring Me to Life” faded into Smash Mouth’s “All Star”; any other evening, Jean would’ve bellowed each of the song’s stanzas, the refrain, the entire song, basically. But tonight, he did no such thing, for as far as he was concerned, the only music that mattered at the moment, and for the rest of eternity, maybe, was the _smack_ of their lips once separated, the mewl he emitted when her tongue touched his teeth, the moan she emitted when he gripped her thigh. Eventually (three minutes and twenty seconds later, to be precise), “All Star” ended, and in its wake was yet another recurrently ridiculed song that Jean recognized straightaway.

It was purely coincidental, perhaps: Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” playing as they made out, which, as everyone knew, was what occurred prior to “getting it on”, because if the tongue of the hottest woman to ever grace God’s green earth was in his mouth, instances that had previously been considered intentional no longer were. But then a blinding light shone upon them; its brilliance beckoned Jean to emerge from the darkness behind his eyelids, and so he opened his eyes.

If he had known that the aggregate of wedding guests would be staring at him, some screwing up their powdered faces in repugnance and others hollering at them to go all the way, just fuck already, he never would’ve opened them at all.

“Looks like Sasha and I won’t be the only ones ‘getting it on’ tonight!” Connie boomed into a microphone; the laughter that succeeded deadened when the microphone decided to ear-splittingly screech. Mercifully, it decided against ear-splittingly screeching when Connie continued, “Jean! Mikaela! You’re—”

“Mikasa.” She corrected.

“Right. Where was I? Oh, yeah! You’re just in time for the traditionally iconic, and iconically traditional, bouquet toss!”

But Mikasa heard none of this, for as soon as she spoke, the Japanese women manning the virtually bare dessert table gossiped amongst themselves. While Mikasa couldn’t hear them from where she stood, fifteen feet away from them, she knew what they were saying all the same; she was, after all, an expert lip-reader, a skill that was simultaneously both a blessing and a curse, although in this case, it was more of a curse.

“Her name might as well be Mikaela, she’s as American as apple pie, for fuck’s sake.”

“She likes her dick white, too. Like mother, like daughter.”

“She should follow her boy toy back to America; she doesn’t belong here anyway.”

Because her mind was elsewhere, somewhere dark and desolate, she squealed when Jean pushed her forward, into the ocean of unwed women; they shoved each other this way and that, vying for a bouquet of flowers that was, essentially, just a bouquet of flowers, not a foretoken that signified they were the next to marry.

Sasha’s eyes swept across this sea of women as boisterous as they were single, turned her back to them, and tossed the bouquet directly into Mikasa’s arms, which had been outstretched in disorientation.

“God help us all.” Observed one of the deprecating Japanese woman; opportunely, Mikasa was too occupied to read their lips this time, due to several very incandescent and very single women clawing at the bouquet in an attempt to snatch it from her undeserving arms.

The flowers felt unfamiliar in her hands; Mikasa had never been one to fantasize about one day marrying a man who forced her heart to flutter indescribably, not even when she had been a little girl, and had no knowledge that half of them ended in divorce, anyway. Besides, had she kept the flowers, the indignation that was currently surging through her would’ve provoked her into reducing them to sweet-smelling slivers, and so she offered them to the woman she regretted being so cruel to earlier: Sunny.

Mikasa practically stomped towards Jean, practically crushed his fingers when she gripped his hand, practically snarled, “Let’s go.”

Jean blinked, bemused; the woman who had just irately strode towards him and insisted they leave was not at all the same woman whose tongue had been warring with his moments ago. “S-sure. Let’s go.”

* * *

The silence in Jean’s car was tumultuous, punctuated only with the tinny J-pop filtering through the speakers. Mikasa never once uttered an address at which to drop her off, and Jean never once inquired for one, instead retracing the route he had taken earlier that morning, the one that led to the hot spring where, for all he knew, she resided: lived off what little, if any, scraps were left from the buffet, bathed in the warm, teeming-with-viruses water, slept in the boiler room with her back to the very wall Jean had banged his head against, the very wall they might’ve banged against a half-hour ago, when they were making out like adolescents at a high school prom as opposed to fully grown adults at a wedding. But now, given that she was regarding him as if he was a serial killer, transporting her to her demise, the odds of them banging against that very wall were about as improbable as him actually being a serial killer, actually transporting her to her demise.

As the car crept along the curb across the _onsen,_ Jean felt at once mollified and melancholic; mollified because he would no longer have to sit in uncomfortable silence (in silence, yes, but uncomfortable silence, no), melancholic because in less than a minute the most beautiful woman he had ever met would open the passenger door and enter the _onsen,_ never to cross paths with him again.

Which is why he flinched when she finally faced him and said, bashfully, “I assume you have yet to use the hot springs.”

“Y-yes,” He stammered; he didn’t climb out of the car until she gesticulated at him to do so, stumbling over a piss-filled _sake_ bottle some degenerate had left on the street. Together, they walked towards the _onsen,_ parting ways to enter their respective changing rooms. _You’d think the woman who very nearly sucked my face clean off would at least help me undress,_ Thought Jean as he stepped out of his boxers; his disrobement was a welcome relief from the constriction his tuxedo provided.

Once properly disrobed, Jean wended his way out of the changing room and towards the men’s _onsen_ (even after hours, there was no secret passageway that led to the women’s’, unless, of course, he was to somehow squeeze himself through the head-shaped hole he had peered through, but he doubted he could achieve such a feat, despite what his lankiness alluded to), immersing himself in the water, one long leg at a time. Through half-shut eyes, he idly observed as steam rose from the water in colorless, asymmetrical lines, barely perceptible, like the despondency Mikasa was emanating.

Eyes now completely closed, Jean rest his head against the somewhat slick pebble tile that encompassed the men’s _onsen_ and waited. Waited for the telltale _splash_ that signified her body uniting with the water. Waited for her to chastise him for ogling her unclothed body, even though she would’ve brought dishonor upon her entire culture had she submerged in the opposite state. Waited for her to ogle him before pushing herself through the pull of the water, her breasts bouncing before abutting his chest as she kissed him. Waited to reciprocate.

Minutes crept by and still, there was no _splash,_ no chastising, no ogling, no bouncing breasts, and, most importantly, no kissing. “Should’ve known she’d ditch me.” He said to no one in particular, in hopes that admitting it aloud would help alleviate his heartache. (It didn’t).

“I did no such thing,” She bellowed from the _onsen’s_ opposing half, the half that was forbidden from those who possessed a penis. “Then again, the night’s still young, meaning I have plenty of other opportunities to leave you here, naked, wet, sad, _alone.”_

Her tone of voice lacked the superciliousness her words otherwise implied; it was forlorn-sounding, with undercurrents of frustration.

Jean swallowed. Then: “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s got you so down all of a sudden?” Again, he waited. Waited for the water to protest as she extracted herself from it. Waited for the squelch of her feet as she trudged towards the changing room. Waited for her to never reemerge from above-mentioned changing room. Waited for her insinuation of abandoning him with his hair sopping wet and not a single article of clothing covering his body to become reality. Just…waited.

But there was none of that, not yet, anyway, because after a pregnant pause Mikasa asked, “Do you ever feel as if you don’t belong?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t see what thi—”

She cut him off; he could practically picture her hand surfacing from the water as she did so, beads of it dripping from her fingertips. “There were these women, at the wedding. They said I don’t belong here, not to my face, anyway, and I couldn’t necessarily hear them but fortunately, or unfortunately in this case, I’m a kick ass lip-reader, so—”

Now it was Jean’s turn to cut her off. “Why do you care what they think?” He then mimicked her comment from earlier that evening—no, yesterday; a brief glance at his water-spattered phone screen assured him so. “I’ve taken you for many things, Mikasa Ackerman, but insecure? And here I thought you were better than that.”

His attempt to enliven her backfired; it had no effect on her. “They weren’t the first, you know. I’ve lost count of how many of my _own people_ have told me I’m not Japanese enough, that I should move to Germany with my dad’s side of the family. All I know is that I stopped keeping track once they reached the triple digits. According to them, my mom’s the antichrist for marrying a white man, and I’m Satan’s spawn. And if you say you’ve been here before, that you know how I feel, I will not hesitate to kill you, so don’t empathize with me.”

 He dipped a finger into the water; it rippled at his touch. “How’d you expect me to do that if I _do_ know how you feel?” He heard her hurriedly surface from the water, the pitter-patter of her feet upon the pavement. “Before you kill me, hear me out,” Her footfalls ceased, although she did not reenter the water. “I know what it’s like, to be told you don’t belong. I was born in Germany, but when my parents divorced, my mom and I moved to France, to be with her family. Since I’m half-German, no one in France wanted anything to do with me. I had no friends, and on top of that I was fat, so not only was I considered a Nazi, I was considered a fat Nazi, which is supposedly worse.

“When I was ten, my mom and I moved to America, because my mom claimed it was the promised land, a country where everyone, regardless of where they’re from or who they are, is treated fairly. Well, turns out that’s a heaping pile of bullshit because I was treated no better in America than I was in France or Germany. At least in America I made some friends.

“Anyway, the intolerance towards me—and my mother—died down a little, eventually. But now that there’s a walking Cheeto running my country and xenophobia is back in style, I can’t tell anyone my first name without them assuming I smell or tell anyone my last name without them assuming I’m a descendant of Hitler. So, yeah, I know exactly how you feel. Don’t assume that I never experienced discrimination, being white and all. In America, only those who were born there truly belong. The same applies to every other country, I suppose.”

He had been so absorbed in his own blathering that he hadn’t even noticed her ascend the wall, her feet hitting the ground with a resounding _splat._ Nor did he notice her slide into the water. He did, however, notice the concupiscence in her voice when she said, softly, though they were the only two people for acres, “Maybe we don’t need to belong anywhere. Maybe all we need is to belong to somebody.”

“Once told me the world is gonna roll me,” Sang Jean, too solemnly for someone alluding to a meme whilst in dishabille. His solemnity faded away forthwith, transforming into hunger as he pulled her very naked body towards his also very naked body and captured her lips with his own.

“I can see why Connie and Sasha are such good friends of yours,” Mikasa mumbled into his mouth, but she kissed him back nevertheless her arms snaking around his neck, his pruned thumbs kneading her nipples, the rigidity of which was no less inconsequential of the cold that plagued the upper half of her body than the steaming water was of the warmth overwhelming her core.

“Should we really do this?” Jean asked. Then, when her kisses paused temporarily, he clarified, “In the water, I mean _.”_

Even with the lower half of her body submerged, Mikasa felt his tumescent member prod her stomach as distinctly as if she was dry. “We’re already naked, so I don’t see why not.”

There was a first time for everything, and that morning, Jean underwent not one, but two, firsts. Namely, soaking in a hot spring and having submerged sex.

* * *

Contrary to Jean’s speculation, Mikasa did not reside at the hot spring itself, but rather, in an apartment complex close by, the abysmal exterior of which mirrored the insufficient income she must receive. Then again, a home was simply someplace to sleep and, more often that not, a home wasn’t a place, per se, but something just as palpable and complex; a person, for instance.

As Jean gazed longingly at Mikasa across the threshold of her apartment, it occurred to him that his home was not halfway across the world, a nearly ten-hour flight away, but right in front of him, in the form of flesh, blood, and obsidian hair. (Not to mention muscles. Lots and lots of muscles).

“Before I go, I just gotta ask,” He said after a most insufferable silence, “Are American dicks bigger than Japanese ones? I’m asking for a friend, I swear.”

For the second time within the last couple hours, and for the first time that morning, Mikasa laughed. Like the first one, it induced a stirring in his loins, and unlike the first one, it was markedly more intimate, as this time, there were no adults, blitzed on champagne, nor children, blitzed on cake and kiddie cocktails, dancing offbeat to “Never Gonna Give You Up”. It was only them, and because it was only them, Jean stepped across the threshold and kissed her deeply, although he would’ve, and most definitely had, done so shortly after her first laugh.

“I dunno,” She mused when they parted for air, his lips feather-light against her temple. Suggestively, she added, “I might need to have another look.”

* * *

When Mikasa awoke later that morning, her bed was cold.

No matter, though; her body brimmed with warmth the instant she noticed the Post-It note on her nightstand, even more so when she read the chicken scratch scrawled on it.

_Who’s the peeping Tom now?_

Underneath was a phone number and another barely intelligible message scribbled within the margins.

_I’ll be home soon._

_P.S. That’s you._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> dat inconsistent writing style tho *heart eyes emojis*


End file.
